> How often are you launching programs? I tend to start up the ones i'm going to need most often right after booting, and most of them just stay open permanently. I might launch one or two programs a day at most, and those tend to be small utilities that launch fast anyway.

I launch Vegas Pro maybe 100 times a day. I've probably launched it 40 times already this morning. I'm constantly in and out of projects. I may have two or three copies open at one time. I use a lot of nested projects and am always right-clicking to open them. Then I close them and open another. I must lunch a web browser even more times a day. I'm always hitting the red X when I don't need them anymore. Maybe it's a bad habit but it's just the way I work. I'm looking forward to trying out an SSD on my next build.

BTW, SSD's on a laptop are awesome. Laptops are so darn slow and they seem to be endlessly accessing the hard drive. I have a friend at work that put an SSD in his laptop and he will launch Eclipse and it's up in like 3 seconds and then I launch it and 20 seconds later maybe I can start working and he says, "Oh yea, I forgot you're still using those slow rotational platters" ;-)

~jr

@Chienworks,

"Wearing out" a newer, good SSD in a non enterprise environment is very unlikely. In fact the drive will likely fail for other reasons than using up the NAND writes. Wear leveling and other techniques of the new controllers take care of this.

And the performance for a boot drive in terms of not only booting the computer, but opening applications, and multitasking is light years ahead of mechanical drives.

Here is a quote from Anandtech, a leading reviewer of this technology:

"Paired with a decent SSD controller, write lifespan is a non-issue. Note that I only fold Intel, Crucial/Micron/Marvell and SandForce into this category. Write amplification goes up by up to an order of magnitude with the cheaper controllers. Characterizing this is what I've been spending much of the past six months doing. I'm still not ready to present my findings but as long as you stick with one of these aforementioned controllers you'll be safe, at least as far as NAND wear is concerned."

You can check out the entire articles/review here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4159/ocz-vertex-3-pro-preview-the-first-sf2500-ssd/2

Have a look at the other SSD reviews on this site and you'll see the better drives make big performance improvements.

You really need TRIM for them though so I'm upgrading when I move to Win7 (includesTRIM) on my next build, which will be very soon.

Most people will tell you once they move to SSD they couldn't imagine going back to a mechanical drive. Kind of like moving from single to multicore processors.

You might want to reconsider your "...I still consider them worse than useless" opinion of SSD's.

Mark

A brief update: I'm pleased with Sandy Bridge. This is the i7-2600K CPU using only the integrated GPU. In my work I've never been much concerned about rendering time (overnight is fine for me) but I have wanted to be able to run preview at full resolution with VFX at full 25fps. Now I can. I use Cineform intermediates and can view 200MB/sec clips at Best/Full with curves & CC & sharpening all applied (for an arbitrary selection of VFX). I added a Noctua NH-D14 cooler for the CPU just in case I want to over-clock.
Having the software on an SSD is nice; I've had to do a lot of reboots while setting up and Vegas loads up very nicely. Running HP Dreamcolor 2480zx on HDMI and operator monitor on DVI. Had a bit of a problem with audio S/N using the integrated audio amp on the Gigabyte GA-H67A-UD3HB3 MB, although this was apparent only on the Behringer Studio speakers (no noise heard using earphones); possibly related to input impedance. Fixed by installing a sound card. Have two 2TB WD HDD in RAID 1 format for current project data, with other HDDs for general data and backup. Still working up, but is achieving what I wanted. Oh, I had someone assemble it for me (as John recommended!); it wasn't worth saving that $105.

So, you haven't waited for the HEX thing to emerge?

You mention needing tosync the GPU with the CPU? Has this been done? And what does it mean?

Grazie

No, I didn't wait for Ivy Bridge: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384909,00.aspIvy Bridge[/link]. I've already waited for the problems to be sorted for Sandy Bridge and didn't wish to wait until the end of this year for Ivy.
Other people are much better at explaining how Intel have integrated CPU and GPU, and this is one such : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-4.htmlQuick Sync[/link]. The question I posed somewhere earlier was whether software not specifically written for the hardware would show all the benefits it promises, and consequently whether not installing a graphics card (to benefit from Quick Sync) was actually a good idea. Well I don't know the answers to those questions, but presently I'm seeing excellent performance for Vegas Pro and no reasons to add another GPU.

So, are you taking all your video out from the MoBo CPU?

Grazie

Yes, I am. When I was ordering the machine I proposed putting in a NVIDIA graphics card, and then I was told that would prevent taking advantage of the Quick Sync facilities. I'm fairly ignorant about computer hardware but shown the literature the advice was clearly correct. What I didn't know was would Vegas and other software (not written for Sandy Bridge) work better with or without a separate video card. I made sure I could add the video card if necessary. I was also concerned about adequate facilities for calibration of my monitors, so it was very much a "suck and see" approach. The Gigabyte MB provides outputs for one of each HMDI, DVI, VGA and a display port. The Dreamcolor monitor provides 10bit on HDMI and 8 bit on DVI, so that goes on HDMI. But for calibration it needs to be on DVI (experimental finding). Anyway it seemed that the MB offered sufficient ports. I would have selected an ASUS MB (more bells & whistles) but I was advised that quality had slipped; the firm had more returns of ASUS MBs than Gigabyte -- I assume no devious motives for the advice!
So that's the general situation and so far I've no cause for adding a GPU card.

EDIT: however it appears that you can still use Quick Sync with a separate GPU in a multi monitor setup. To lift a quote from the first reference (many posts above):

"Quick Sync with a Discrete GPU

There’s just one hangup to all of this Quick Sync greatness: it only works if the processor’s GPU is enabled. In other words, on a desktop with a single monitor connected to a discrete GPU, you can’t use Quick Sync.

This isn’t a problem for mobile since Sandy Bridge notebooks should support switchable graphics, meaning you can use Quick Sync without waking up the discrete GPU. However there’s no standardized switchable graphics for desktops yet. Intel indicated that we may see some switchable solutions in the coming months on the desktop, but until then you either have to use the integrated GPU alone or run a multimonitor setup with one monitor connected to Intel’s GPU in order to use Quick Sync"

It was that post above your last post that has had me twisted about. Exactly what does quick sync provide? I've read and re-read but at present I'm being far too thick to appreciate what I can gain. That, and the fact that the present quote is based around an ASUS!

I read your re-"quote" above and still find this beyond me.

Grazie

My somewhat shallow understanding is that Intel have built a CPU chip that shares space with the GPU, and through sharing cache memory are able to process graphic data more quickly than can separate CPU and GPU. The data paths are shorter (faster) and data doesn't have to be read out and written into GPU memory. The Sandy Bridge (and Ivy) were designed specifically for media processing (TV on web, etc) so are designed for highly efficient encoding/decoding.
Having understood that much, and being satisfied by reviews of the capabilities of the CPU overall, I was prepared to go along the recommended path. After all, not initially installing a GPU card doesn't prevent adding it later, and if so doesn't cost any more than one expected to pay in the first place. One more thing to note is that there is no upgrade path from Sandy without replacing the MB.
Looking at the postings in this thread there is general agreement about this Intel technology and the only question seems to be whether you should wait for the next level. It's a good question. I've been needing an upgrade for sometime and went now. When I click on "devices" I see 8 CPUs, so I assume Ivy will give you 12. In your initial spec the only queries were power supply (I have 850 w) and CPU chip. There were other recommendations for the i7-2600K, so if you want to go now you have all that you need. In another 12 months I would choose Ivy Bridge.

EDIT: the ASUS MB is probably more expensive than the Gigabyte, and your supplier might have quite different views on reliability. Until now I had understood ASUS to be of superior quality.

OK, understand that - video being processesed directky on MoBo without needing to pipe out to a GPU card. Makes sense. OK.

What is meant by: "[I] One more thing to note is that there is no upgrade path from Sandy without replacing the MB.[/I]"

Grazie

I understand this refers to pin spacings and in particular that Ivy Bridge won't fit a Sandy Bridge socket. Often one can upgrade a CPU in the same MB, but not, I was warned, in this case. I wasn't much concerned, being satisfied to replace the MB in such an event. Of course everything else can stay the same, but upgrading the CPU means upgrading the MB also.